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4 TOkTOC For the Rural Southerner and Plantation. BROWN LEGHORNS. As far as can be learned, Brown Leghorns were first introduced into the United States by Captain Isaac Gates, of the brig Asa Fish, land ing at Mystic River, Connecticut, in 1859; oth ers affirm they were not known in this country until 1853, when a trio was bought from a ship at Boston, Massachusetts, on her return from Leghorn, Italy. However this may be, very little was known of them until 1865, when they were exhibited at the first poultry show ever held in the United States, that of the Worcester (Mass.) Poultry Club. The exhibitors entered the birds as Brown Leghorns, but, owing to the ignorance of the managers of the exhibition, were obliged to change the entry and call them Spanish, which they did, at the same time en tering a protest against it; and it was not until the following exhibition that they were recog nized as Leghorns, and altogether distinct from Spanish. They are very handsome birds —the large, red combs, delicate wattles, erect, proud carriage, brilliant plumage and quick movements, render them high ly attractive. The cock in plu mage is very much like the black-breasted red game, but has yellow legs and white ear lobes; the hens are like the game hen, but shorter in the leg, and the breast feathers go from a gray to a light salmon color. The combs are some times immense. An instance is related where a Brown Leg horn cock weighed three and a half pounds, and when the head was cut off, it, with the wattles, weighed one pound and three ounces. Though comparatively small—the cock weighing four and a half to six pounds, an<l the hen three and a half to four and a half pounds —they make excellent table birds, the skin and fat being of a rich, clear yellow. But their great point of attraction is their laying qualities, in which they are not equaled by any fowls known. On an av erage, the Brown Leghorn hen, with generous food, plenty of ground bone anti a dry roost, will lay two hundred and fifty eggs in a year, and in nine cases out of ten will not want to set more than once in the year; and it may be set down as pretty certain that two-thirds of the hens will not want to set as often as that. The chirks mature earlier than those of any other variety, frequently being known to begin laying three months after they were hatched, so that in the year three generations can be produced. When such birds can be raised, why is it that farmers—parties interested in such matters — will persist in keeping the miserable “dung hills" around their yards, giving returns of only about twenty-five per cent, of the cost of the food consumed ? K. Special Notice. Poultry raisers, breeders, and importers, should remember that a specialty is made of all matters touching Lheir interests in this journal, and that not less than seventy leading poulterers in the country have just sen' us their advertise ments in view of the large and increasing de mand for the best breeds of fowls coming from the South. Advertise without delay. the mui. so mm & mm For the Rural Southerner and Plantation. POULTRY RAISING. As I have made poultry raising a specialty for a few years past, I will give you some of my experience in the business. I have raised from one to three hundred chicks a year, and wintered from fifty to one hundred in different years. My success has been such that I shall tax my time and yards to their full capacity. Brahmas, especially the light variety, have been my favorites, although I have had good success with the Cochins, Plymouth Rocks, and other varieties. For summer layers, the non-setters are superior, but in winter, when eggs bring the highest prices, my Brahmas have invariably outlaid them. In regard to profits, I find with eggs and fowls, sold at market prices, an income of $2.50 to each hen wintered ; and here let me say, in my locality (Central New Hampshire) dressed poultry ranges from fifteen to thirty cents per pound, according to season and quality of the poultry, and eggs from twenty to forty cents per dozen ; eggs being highest from November to February, and poultry from March to Septem ber. The price of corn averages one dollar per SS& SMC • jMHEynir£« ■ * ' \ - \r LIGHTVBRAHMAS—PROPERTY OF WM. McNAUGHT, Jr., ATLANTA, GEORGIA. bushel, and the prices of other grain is in pro-1 portion. By actual experiment, I find I can raise a Brahma chick to the age of six months for forty cents. It will then bring, if an early Spring chick, one dollar or more. A friend made the same experiment, and came three cents below me. I have made no account of the manure, except as an offset to the interest on money invested. In rearing a large flock it will j not do to crowd them at night ; and if more than one hundred chicks are reared, they will do better if separated by a partition or fence, or what is better, if you have plenty of land, have your coops far enough apart that they will not get together. Keep the chicks away from the old fowls ; select out the weak ones and give them a better chance, and as soon as they are fit for market kill them off, as you need to breed from your most robust stock. Keep your breeding stock yarded, and from eight to ten hens only with each cock to insure the fertility of the eggs. In winter, keep in small flocks, say twenty-five in each coop or apartment, and if a fowl should show signs of disease take it out, and if a little extra cat e and treatment does not bring it round, it had better be consigned to the compost heap. Have the coops dry and warm, and keep free of vermin by sprinkling a decoction of tobacco on the nests and roosts. Provide a dust bath for the fowls; give a variety of food, with a plenty of raw, broken bone, oyster shells, and fine rouen or clover hay. One hundred hens will eat five hundred pounds of fine clover hay in one winter, saving more than its value in other food, and give you more eggs than if deprived of it. Have a supply of pure water and clean gravel to which they can have free access. These directions followed, there is no trouble in raising a large flock of chicks. Ten men, occupying as many contiguous acres, would not hesitate to keep fifty adult fowls and rear one hundred chicks each. One man can just as well keep five hundred adult fowls and rear one thousand chicks on the same amount of land, if he gives the same care and attention to each in dividual flock that each individual would give to his one flock. Calvin P. Couch. Concord, N. H. The Exhibition of the Rhode Island Poultry and Columbarian Society last month, in Howard Hall, Providence, R. 1., was very successful. It was in the hands of active, enthusiastic, and in every way, competent managers, who understood the requisites for an attractive show and the value of judicious advertising. For the Rural Southerner and Plantation. Combs Changing Color. A Reader desires to know the cause of, and remedy for, a Leghorn's comb changing color— turning black and purple at the back end ami on the tips, and in a few hours resuming its nat ural color again. I will attempt to point out the probable cause. Fowls while going through the moulting season, if confined to a small yard or run, though they may have an abundance of other food, rarely ev er get a sufficient supply of animal food of that peculiar nourishing character necessary to sup ply the demand then made upon them, r»--, per haps, by moulting alone, but by lict^J 0 .* £he result is a loss of vitality to a certain extent.— Hence, this changing in color denotes the amount of vitality, being increased or diminished at cer tain periods, as the case may be. Consequently, if I could not give them liberty, so they could secure a good supply of insect food, I should give them daily some fresh meat, or liver, chop ped fine, an abundance of green food, and stale bread soaked in ale, for a few days only. If fresh meat could not be obtained conveniently, taking a few bones or stale meat and covering it an inch or two with ground will soon produce insect food in abundance for them. Portland, Pa. A. C. Hunsbxrgir. Preparing Chicken Feed. Poultry dough should not be made too thin. Many young chickens die by being forced to take too much water with their food, whereas, if fed properly, they might live. Giving meal too wet will not prove fatal in the case of fowls, but they thrive better if the food is mixed stiff enough to crumble. The food is moistened while in the crop by secretions from glands. It next passes, a little at a time, into a pouch formed by the ex pansion of a part of the passage between the crop and gizzard. Here other digestive juices are se creted, also in the gizzard, and still further on. Now, if the food contains too much water before it is fed, these digestive juices are diluted and impaired. All healthy animals regulate their thirst by the needs of the system ; therefore, if they are always kept well supplied with water, separate from the food, they will drink only what is necessary, and in mixing food it is best to be on the safe side. Helping to Hatch. “ Can you render the chick advantageous as sistance during its hatching ?” Yes, most assur edly. The eggs of some varieties, particularly the Asiatic, are sometimes ex ceedingly thick-shelled ; the shell “pips,” and here the little bird breathes his last if help is not given. The fine membrane becomes glued to him and contracts, and it, with his downy covering, becomes, as it were, a coat of mail, to crush out its life. Notice, and if the hatching is slow, have an eye to your nest until the business is through with ; for sometimes it appears as if ep idemic. Many chicks go by the board in this way; help should be rendered ; so take a small-sized bodkin, and care fully thrusting its point a short distance under the membrane and shell, gently tear the first and crack the latter as you pro ceed around the circumference of the egg. If the shell is dry, drop a few drops of tepid wa ter at the point of pressure. Having taken off the top of of the shell, drop about ten drops of warm water around the body of the chick, and put the egg, as it now stands, un der the hen, the open side up permost ; behind or under the fluff is the best situation. This done, the chick is nine times out of ten safe, and will hatch vigorously. I have had wonderful experience in this lino.— Poultry Bulletin. Another Chicken Cholera Remedy. B. Agee, Geary City, Kan., writes the Ameri can Poultry Journal:—“ I will here give what I have found to be an infallible remedy for the so-called chicken cholera :—Make a mixture of two ounces each of red pepper, alum, rosin, and flowers of sulphur, and put it in their food in proportions of one tablespoonful to three pints of seabled meal. In severe cases, give about one-third of a teaspoonful in a mea! pellet once a day to each fowl, putting a smell lump of alum in their drinking water. I have tried the above ingredients with marked success ; have cured fowls in the last stage of the disease. I make it a practice now to give my fowls some of it once or twice a week, and have no symptoms of any disease among them.” A Young Lady in Concord, Mass., says there is profit in the poultry business. She commenc ed with about sixty fowls in the Spring. From these she raised four hundred and fifty chickens. During the season she sold eggs to the amount of S9O, and from September 20th to January 27th she got ready for market one hundred and fifty pairs of chickens, which she sold for $260, making in all $350. A Farmer in Chester county, Penn., sold last year, from thirty hens, eggs and chickens at a net profit of $268.94.